Alan Titchmarsh: ‘Young people, get back in touch with nature!’

Alan Titchmarsh, the popular celebrity gardener and author has held a charity talk at Winchester University’s Stripe auditorium.

The evening entailed ‘prose, poetry and gardening’ with all proceedings going towards a local refugee and asylum seekers charity; the Southampton & Winchester Visitors Group.

Despite the bubbly appearance, the event did have a deeper purpose. Titchmarsh claimed his goal was to ‘get people back in touch with nature’, and to ‘make people both think and laugh’.

He spoke of how young people are more behind screens than ever before, and that the extent of people’s interest in nature ends at pretty documentaries like Blue Planet 2.

“You think ‘wow, that’s amazing’, then you go away again,

You can actually get involved (with nature) you can do something, rather than just say ‘well, that was good’, nature needn’t be a spectator sport.”

“It’s a bigger challenge, I think, when you are dealing with younger people.”

“With age comes wisdom, a lot of older people like being outside,

So many of us live our lives on screens, whether that is Twitter, Facebook, or FaceTime. There’s a gap between you and reality if you’re not careful.”

Titchmarsh also spoke about his chosen charity and what it means to him, stating that many refugees ‘have nothing’, and that it is ‘everyone’s duty to do something about that’.

Southampton & Winchester Visitors Group stated that Alan’s talk was ‘indispensible’ to their cause.

He plans to do more similar talks in the future.